


Motet

by Nokomis



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: The ways Cass couldn’t see Batman in Bruce Wayne were strange.





	Motet

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ [here](). Set during Cass's run as Batgirl.

The ways Cass couldn’t see Batman in Bruce Wayne were... strange.

Nightwing moved with the same effortless grace she loved to watch and imitate, no matter what uniform he wore.

Robin had the same watchful, wary set of his shoulders whether they were draped in a cape or a sweater.

Stephanie always exuded violence and excitement and laughter, as though it bubbled under her skin, even when she wasn’t calling herself Spoiler.

But Bruce Wayne ‘s entire stance was deliberately different from Batman’s. There was a faint line of tension running up his spine, but it ran differently than when he wore the uniform. Submission radiated from the tilt of his shoulders, boredom in the set of his jaw, “I am only doing this to appease you” in his smile.

It was all fascinatingly different from Batman.

And when he took a blonde woman’s arm and led her to the dance floor, Cass could see the annoyance and resignation in his smile, and.... a faint tremor of joy throughout his body as the music swelled and he moved across the floor. 

The same reluctant joy his body gave off when he fought. 

She tilted her head more, watching the discordant chime of thought and feelings. Bruce was the most challenging person at the party to read. Everyone else was “pick me”or “look here” or “do this for me.” Anger and jealousy and laughter.

Bruce was trying not to be Batman here. Was trying to be the same as everyone else. He failed even as those around him saw him as “ours”.

“Hrmph, that bastard’s ignoring you, isn’t he?”

Cass was so immersed in watching that it took a moment to realize that the woman next to her - heavyset, glittering with jewels and wobbling chins all broadcasting curiosity and... hopefulness? - was speaking to her.

“Mmm,” she agreed. She remembered this woman’s avid stare when she’d walked through the door on Bruce’s arm, and he’d said... Gossip-monger. Agnes Fowler.

“Bringing a pretty young thing like you, then abandoning you and dancing with that Hayes tart.” Agnes watched Cass carefully. Looking for reactions, Cass realized, recognizing the familiar tilt of her head. 

She shrugged. Not what Agnes had hoped for.

“You should cut in,” Agnes tapped the side of her champagne flute impatiently. Hoping to create... discord.

“Cut in?” Cass asked.

“The dance,” she said. She hoped for a fight, Cass saw. Not thrown punches, but harsh words and anger. Something to... talk about. 

Pointless.

She looked back on the dance floor, where the people were all performing the same dance. Some awkward, others beautiful. 

She liked dancing the same way Bruce liked dancing - the movement of fighting, only for beauty’s sake, not violence. For connecting with others, not pushing them away.

It looked... soothing. Interaction she understood, unhindered by words. 

She watched a young man tap another on the shoulder, then steal away a girl in shimmering white. Cut in, Agnes had said.

There was.... worry in Bruce’s forehead as she approached, slow in the teetering heels Babs had chosen. Disdain in the crinkle of his dance partner’s nose.

She tapped the blonde’s shoulder, and waited expectantly for her to step aside so Cass could dance. The blonde ruffled up, as though she were going to attack with the sharp words these people used instead of knives and fists, but stalked away as Bruce took his hands off her waist and smiled - fake as everything else about his stance, but tinged with real relief - at Cass.

She stepped into his arms, moving into the dance smoothly. Under her fingertips, his shoulders loosened, and his silence felt like being in Batman’s presence, even if his smile, the tilt of his head, the gentleness in his hand on her waist were not.

She listened to the music and moved her feet in patterns mirroring Bruce’s, and laughed when he whirled her around with a flourish, unnecessary but fun.

They moved as if they were one, the same way they fought together, against each other, only now it was *with* each other.

Cass could now see, more clearly than ever, the person lurking within. Behind Batman, behind Bruce Wayne - something muted and found in the twist of his arms around her, the strength in his thighs, the faint lines around his eyes.

She’d glimpsed it before, but had never deemed it important. It wasn’t a threat, it wasn’t a weakness. It simply... was.

She smiled again and tried to see if he could see her as clearly in her dancing as she could see him.

He was... pleased by her smiles. It eased part of the worry that always trailed along his chest, his neck, his brow.

That was enough.

And when the song ended, he stepped back, already back to being Bruce Wayne and sometimes he thrummed with the language of the bat, but the person she glimpsed was gone.

He saw it as a weakness, even though she could tell it wasn’t.

She didn’t have the words to tell him why.


End file.
